In Celebration and Commemoration of a Wedding.

(R and N on their big day)

In celebration of my oldest Friends Wedding to the girl of her dreams, the speech I gave at the celebration of her nuptials.


Friends:

As is traditional for a man in my present position, I have been asked to say a few words. Contrary to tradition, they will indeed be few.

I have known R a long time. I'm fond of saying that we were pushed around in prams together, and though we may not in fact go back that far, it's pretty close. R is, bar members of my immediate family, the individual I have known the longest in my thirty four years on this planet. Even beyond that, she is my oldest friend. Thus she is one of the few people I have ever known whom I feel capable of standing up in public and, in effect, passing judgement on.

Throughout our long and not uneventful friendship, we have seen each other through some very good, and indeed some very bad times. Through all these times, she has shown herself to be a person of many qualities. These qualities, for those of you who know her, will be familiar. R is, and has shown herself to me, over and over again through the years, as being capable of endless love, ferocious loyalty, unyeilding principles, tremendous humour, and a deep and almost overwhelming humanity. She can burn the fear and hopelessness out of you in the darkest situations with little other than a smile. These are qualities which, in my mind, are the pillars of a marriage or public commitment, that will last, as the saying goes, till "death do us part".

And surely in these days of history accelerating to the point where it speeds past us in a blur, while we watch with shielded eyes. Where institutions created hundreds of years ago that are no longer relevant crumble, and new creations, social structures and traditions are born, the most important thing, the thing that will allow us to cope and thrive in this relentlessly changing environment, is to have someone there who has "got our back", who will look out for us as we will look out for them, in love, honour and friendship. I cannot think of a better partner in crime to see a person through this tumultous and ever evolving time, than R.

N, I also know and consider a good friend, but as you might imagine, I know her considerably less well than R, but well enough to say this, in marrying R, she deserves everything she is going to get.

Thank you, a toast to the Bride and Bride, a traditional toast at a non-traditional wedding, LONG LIFE AND HAPPINESS.

(names above truncated as always, because I have no idea who the Hell you web people are.)


Peace and Hope

FatherCrow